Effects of environmental manipulations on cocaine-vs-social choice in male and female rats

Abstract

Cocaine use disorder occurs in an environment where cocaine and other nondrug commodities are concurrently available. Preclinical drug-vs-nondrug choice procedures are one simplified method of modeling this complex clinical environment. The present study established a discrete-trial cocaine-vs-social interaction choice procedure in male and female rats and determined sensitivity of choice behavior to manipulations of reinforcer magnitude and non-contingent “sample” reinforcer presentation. Rats could make up to nine discrete choices between an intravenous cocaine infusion (0.1–1.0 mg/kg/inf) and social interaction with a same-sex social “Partner” rat. Cocaine infusions were available under a progressive-ratio (PR) schedule of reinforcement, and social interaction was available under a fixed-ratio (FR) 3 schedule. Social interaction was chosen over no or small cocaine doses (saline, 0.01 mg/kg/inf) and behavior was reallocated away from social and towards cocaine at larger cocaine doses (1.0 mg/kg/inf). Manipulating social interaction time as one method to alter social reinforcer magnitude did not significantly alter cocaine-vs-social choice. Removing the non-contingent reinforcer presentations before the discrete choice trials also failed to affect cocaine-vs-social choice, suggesting the time interval was sufficient to minimize any potential influence of the non-contingent cocaine infusions on subsequent choice behavior. Overall, the present results were consistent with previous drug-vs-social choice studies and extend our knowledge of environmental factors impacting drug-vs-social choice. Future studies determining the pharmacological sensitivity of cocaine-vs-social choice will be important in expanding the preclinical utility of these procedures for candidate medication drug development.